Do you get updates to the proprietary software stack if you go without a subscription license?

If the answer is no, then you might own the hardware on paper, but you don't control any of the software that makes said hardware useful.

If the answer is yes, on the other hand, then one must ask who is paying for those updates, because that can't be sustainable.

So while most of the software is open source rather than proprietary, you still have a fair point that customers pay for support (as they do with most enterprise products). One could theoretically use the product without first-party software updates, managing the open source oneself... but that would have practical impediments (and runs counter to the all-in-one simplicity that customers value in the Oxide product).

Two points about your last point. First, software improvements benefit all customers; as the business grows, the effective cost per customer shrinks. Also, most customers grow their Oxide deployment or will replace hardware after a depreciation cycle. The sustainability of investments into the software (and the product generally) is on solid ground.

> Do you get updates to the proprietary software stack if you go without a subscription license?

what proprietary software stack? they just publish it all on https://github.com/oxidecomputer/ .

The software is open source and developed in the open. You can pay for support, but there’s no software licensing cost.